Ricardo has signed a memorandum of understanding to bring Cordel Group’s railway asset condition monitoring and inspection tools to the global market. Products include sensors, cameras and LiDAR scanners that can be fitted to in-service vehicles to digitally map the condition of track, electrification and the surrounding environment to support automated clearance surveys, ballast profiling, overhead equipment monitoring and detection of encroaching vegetation.
Rail Baltica’s 2022 Industry Day will be held online on December 6. The annual event ‘provides an opportunity for our senior experts and the management representatives of the Rail Baltica delivery organisations as well as our EU partners to share general project updates in numerous areas’, said RB Rail Chair Agnis Driksna. ‘We invite all our existing and potential future partners and stakeholders to join us virtually to learn about the Rail Baltica global project progress and closest priorities.’
The Stadler board has promoted CFO for Switzerland Lucius Gerig to lead the Swiss division from January 1 2023, when he will also join the Stadler Group executive board. He succeeds Markus Bernsteiner, who will take over the role of Group CEO from Peter Spuhler who is to focus on chairing the board. Stadler said the appointment would ‘continue the generational change on the group executive board’.
A agreement to establish an EBI Lock 950 interlocking centre of excellence, consider hydrogen and battery trains and increase Kazakhstan’s railway supply chain capacity, know-how and localisation was signed by national railway KTZ and Alstom during November. Alstom currently employs over 1 000 people at six sites in Kazakhstan and works with more 340 local companies.
The Indonesian government is developing a legal framework for any future high speed projects, designed to clarify how costs would be split between the national budget, state-owned enterprises and the private sector and set out regulations for land acquisition and technical systems.
CGI has been awarded a long-term contract to provide managed services for the cloud-based online reservation system it has built for VIA Rail Canada.
RailVision has raised US$4m in seed funding which will be used to recruit technical staff and expand its EcoRail tablet app for train drivers. This was launched in 2021 and according to the company has delivered fuel cost savings of 10% to 15% in pilot testing with companies including Genessee & Wyoming, Metrolinx, Port de Montréal, and VIA Rail. The investment, which was more than two times oversubscribed, was led by Trucks Venture Capital with participation from new investors MUUS Climate Partners, Blackhorn Ventures, Incite.org, and Measured Ventures, and returning investors Active Impact Investments and Neil Murdoch.
During November Eurofima concluded a new financing of SFr200m for 12 years with Swiss Federal Railways; €261m over nine years and €44m over 13 years with Belgium’s SNCB to finance 68 Siemens Desiro ML Class 08 EMUs; and €125m over nine years with Spain’s RENFE to finance 45 regional trainsets.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Railways is developing plans to develop[ Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Peshawar and Quetta stations as commercial hubs for business activities to help generate revenue and attract more passenger traffic.
Assystem has acquired 100% of LogiKal. The companies provide project management office services and tools for clients including the UK’s High Speed 2 Ltd, Hong Kong MTR and Sydney Metro. ‘Assystem’s ambition is to accelerate the convergence of engineering and project management through digital’, said Christian Jeanneau, Assystem’s Senior Vice-President – Digital. ‘By bringing LogiKal into the Assystem corporate family we are taking a step further towards achieving this.’